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Key Message

Understanding the economic value of ecosystem goods and services is a prerequisite to making good sustainable development policy.

Values and Valuation

What is nature worth?

To advance sustainable development policy effectively, we must understand (a) the value of nature (i.e., environmental assets or ecosystem services); and (b) related resource constraints—now and far into the future.

There are several types of values used to make decisions about nature. Ecologists typically think of the value of nature as being “intrinsic,” as having worth for its own sake, while economists assign value derived from prices arising through market transactions. These economic values are relatively easy to determine and include ecosystem services like timber and food, among others. Alternatively, finding economic values for ecosystem services that are not privately owned or traded in the market—such as biodiversity or wetland water purification benefits—is difficult.

Economic values do not necessarily say anything about social or philosophical values about the environment. Yet these other types of values are extremely important. For example, the level of biodiversity conserved depends on both the economic and non-economic values assigned by people; more biodiversity is conserved when people intrinsically value it.

How might we better capture economic values that are not represented in markets andalso include other notions of value? This poses challenges both in defining value and the actual process of valuation, be it in economic or other terms.

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